At the Fujiwara residence on the outskirts of Osaka—
"Oh dear, what a pitiful child," Fujiwara sighed.
"So young, yet hunting demons alone in the mountains… it's too strong, too unbelievable."
As he spoke, he flipped through the registry in his hands, a ledger of missing persons from the Osaka area.
It did not take him long to find the matching entry.
"Yajima Hina, the fourth child of Yajima Runo of Hirakawa County. She should be eleven this year. Besides the parents, the Yajima family had two older brothers, one older sister, and a baby brother just over a month old. They lived by hunting and were well known locally for it. Two months ago, the entire family vanished without warning. Only some dried bloodstains were found in the house."
"She's already eleven…" Hozuki murmured in surprise. "What did the neighbors say about what happened to the Yajima family?"
"They claimed a wild beast killed them all," Fujiwara said, closing the ledger. "A brown bear Yajima had previously wounded while hunting. They said that bear came back and slaughtered the entire household."
He paused, then added, "It's a plausible story. We won't need to cover for it."
A hunter's daughter…
Hozuki recalled the way the girl had stared at her.
No wonder she carried that innate smell of blood and death.
In the bath chamber, Akika was carefully washing Yajima Hina's body.
The girl had survived alone in the mountains for two months. On top of that, she had been cutting herself to use her blood to lure demons. Her body was utterly wrecked, drained to the limit.
Her hair had turned dry and yellow. Her skin clung to her bones. She was at the age when she should have been growing, yet she looked as though she were already nearing the end of her life.
Akika was far too tenderhearted to witness such a thing without tears.
Hina sat blankly in the bath, eyes hollow, as though she still had not fully returned to herself.
"What do you intend to do with this child, Lady Hozuki?" Fujiwara asked. "Send her to an orphanage, like the others?"
Over the past month, Hozuki had killed demons at astonishing speed and saved many children's lives. Some had wanted to follow her and hunt demons. Others had wanted to join the Demon Slayer Corps.
She had rejected every one of them.
In the end, Fujiwara had simply packed them off to orphanages.
At first they had protested and cried, but before long the peaceful, stable life there had won them over.
Even at this distance, Hina seemed to hear every word.
A flicker of life returned to her vacant eyes, and she turned her head toward the woman outside the screen.
"That child would never be satisfied in an orphanage," Hozuki said.
"You mean to keep her?" Fujiwara's gaze fell to the Nichirin Blade lying on the table, and he caught her implication at once. "But she's far too frail. She's eleven, yet she looks seven or eight at most."
To hunt demons required a body that could endure it.
A child this depleted would have little chance of becoming a Demon Slayer.
"No," Hozuki said, shaking her head. "Even if she joined the Corps, she couldn't hold a sword."
She picked up Hachigyu and turned to leave the Wisteria Crest House.
Behind her came the sound of water.
Hina had stepped out of the bath.
Akika did not stop her.
Barefoot, the girl crossed the floor, passed the screen, and fixed her eyes on Hozuki's back.
"What is it, Hina?" Hozuki asked, turning.
"I won't go to an orphanage."
There was a sharpness in the girl's gaze, like the cub of a beast in the mountains. However young she was, she was not the sort of creature herbivores could threaten.
"Then where would you like to go?" Hozuki asked with a small smile.
"I'm grateful you brought me here," the girl said, bowing first to Hozuki and then to the Fujiwaras. "I'm grateful for your care. I've eaten a full meal for the first time in forever. But if you send me to an orphanage, I'll just go back into the mountains and keep hunting demons."
Her voice did not tremble.
"A demon killed my whole family. Six people. Tonight was the sixth demon I've killed. Every demon I kill from now on is profit. And if I can't even kill one and die up there in the mountains, then so be it."
"Child, you…" Fujiwara began, frowning.
Hozuki lifted a hand to stop him.
Then she crouched in front of the girl and brushed the damp strands away from Hina's forehead.
"Are you forcing me to make a choice?" she asked.
The girl said nothing.
In her own eyes, she had nothing left, only a life she could use to prove her resolve.
"You're a beautiful girl," Hozuki said, studying the clean little face before her. "You could live a life a hundred times happier than anything the Demon Slayer Corps could offer."
The girl stared at her.
Hozuki's eyes were closed, and yet every word she spoke seemed to hold a strange, spellbinding power.
Like the tales of hidden monsters beyond the human world that Hina's father used to tell her.
Now that monster stood before her, offering her a beautiful life.
"Osaka is a city many people envy," Hozuki said softly. "In the future, you could stay there. Live in peace. Settle down."
"I heard what you said," the girl answered. "You said my body is too weak. That I can't even hold a sword, didn't you?"
Her fists clenched.
"Then give me time. I'll prove you wrong. My father taught me how to hunt since I was small. With those hunting skills alone, I killed six demons. I'm stronger than ordinary people. If you're willing to teach me, I…"
Back at the shrine, when she had first met Makijuro, he must have stood in exactly this position.
If Hozuki had not shown him the Mystic Eyes, he would have preferred that she live as an ordinary girl.
"And if I refuse?" she asked.
The girl took a deep breath.
Then, in a voice so faint it was nearly swallowed by the air, she said:
"Then I'd rather rot in the mountains."
Hozuki rose to her feet.
Her haori swept before the girl, the golden cranes embroidered across it seeming to take wing in Hina's eyes.
"Mr. Fujiwara," she said.
"Yes, ma'am." Fujiwara bowed at once.
"Prepare what she'll need. I'm taking her back to the mountain."
With that, Hozuki stepped out.
In the damp haze of steam, the girl could only stare after her retreating back.
Hozuki climbed the mountain alone and returned to the shrine.
At a shrine, the torii is regarded as a gate—a boundary. Passing beneath it means stepping out of the human world and into the realm of the gods.
Standing before the torii, she felt a strange sense of recurrence, of cycles returning upon themselves.
The wind moving through the mountain trees brought her a brief peace.
In truth, Yajima Hina's destination had been decided the moment Hozuki found her.
That child belonged to the Demon Slayer Corps.
Hozuki's hesitation had only ever been part of the assessment, part of seeing whether the girl's temperament would suit her. Just as Makijuro had known at a glance that Hozuki was unsuited to learn Flame Breathing under him, Hozuki had been judging whether Hina might be able to follow her in learning Thunder Breathing.
Her conclusion was simple:
They could try for now.
If it did not work, she would contact another cultivator later.
By now, the restoration of the shrine was more than halfway complete.
The shrine had originally been structurally sound despite its ruined condition, so the repairs were not truly difficult. The greatest damage had come from Hozuki herself, from the sword strikes she had unleashed while searching for the White Serpent.
The cave beneath the shrine had been fully excavated and repurposed.
Among the workers was an old craftsman experienced in restoring ancient buildings. After discussing it with Hozuki, he proposed carving the underground space into an inverted pagoda.
In the legends of Shakra Mountain, this shrine had originally existed to suppress evil beings. Now the shrine had decayed, and human bones had been found in the cavern below. To the local workers, this was a taint.
And where there was taint, there had to be something to bind it.
So now the shrine above ground would remain the main structure, while beneath it there would be a pagoda-shaped underground chamber. The only entrance to that inverted tower would be the dry well before the honden, sealed off with braided shimenawa rope to form a proper barrier.
Hozuki intended to place the demonic blade there.
Once some time had passed, she would return to Peach Mountain and enshrine the sword here properly.
The approach up Shakra Mountain followed the traditional order: the torii, the approach path, the purification pavilion, the worship hall, and finally the main sanctuary. It was the layout of a thoroughly orthodox shrine.
In scale, however, the grounds had grown to more than three times their former size. Built into the mountain itself, the roofs now rose above the forest canopy.
Hozuki had never imagined that "restoration" could become something this lavish.
"But for a shrine of this kind," the old craftsman had asked her, "have you considered what will be installed as the shintai?"
Inside the honden, a shrine enshrines a sacred object—a vessel or symbol regarded as the body of the deity. Only once such an object was placed within the sanctuary could the shrine truly be said to rest under divine protection.
A shintai…
Hozuki searched through the memories of her days at the shrine.
Back then, only Kannazuki Rin had possessed the key to the honden. Hozuki herself had only been brought inside from time to time when prayers were offered.
The demonic blade had been kept in a side shrine, not in the honden itself.
As for what had once been enshrined in the honden—
she realized that no matter how hard she tried, she could not remember.
She knew that Fushimi Inari Shrine served Inari.
And yet the object enshrined in the honden had had nothing to do with Inari at all.
Hozuki sat down on the stone steps beneath the torii and looked out along the mountain road stretching beyond.
The wind stirred the leaves with a rustling murmur.
As she gazed out over the mountain scenery, her Mystic Eyes opened before she even realized it.
Within the deep blue whirlpool of those eyes, something in the depths of her memory felt as though it had been lightly touched by an unseen hand.
And what she had been unable to recall suddenly became clear.
The sacred object in the honden had been…
a stone?
Its name…
was the Yomi Stone.
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 178)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 115)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League ( 126 )
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter110)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter108)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter82)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter144)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 70
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 99
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 95
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 99
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 92
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 65
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 76
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer 47
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 44
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player 43
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 26
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 32
Uma Musume: From Beginner 26
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